Time will tell if SWB makes right decision

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees announced their finalists in their team name contest, and fan reaction was somewhat less than positive. Some questioned whether any of the finalists would last. Others said none were worth voting for at all.

Others suggested the team would have been better off keeping the Yankees monicker because, after all, it still has some measure of marketability.

These were not words I wrote in the moments after the announcement of the six finalists was made Friday morning.

I wrote them back in June, the night I heard there would be a contest to rename the Yankees before they christened the newly renovated PNC Field. I wrote them to get a head-start on the column I surely would write on the matter. I was born in this area. I was raised here. I've spent my adult life here.

I know how it thinks.

Sure enough, in the moments after the Yankees announced the six finalists - the Blast, Black Diamond Bears, Fireflies, Porcupines, RailRiders and Trolley Frogs - my Twitter feed was abuzz with how lousy the selection was.

"Are you serious on those team names?" one wrote.

"That's a joke, right?" said another.

The general consensus on Fireflies and Porcupines is that they sound "wimpy." Others questioned whether the team could make a legitimate logo out of the Blast, or the RailRiders. If it could be said that one name intrigued fans, it was Trolley Frogs. But nobody seemed to know it was the mechanical part of a trolley.

Before we go much further, let's hope fans realize a few things: This is not the first Name The Team contest run in the minors, and honestly, this is a pretty good selection of finalists. You have to understand, this is more about marketability than it is intimidating opponents with the most ferocious team name imaginable. It's about coming up with a great logo that will look cool on a hat, a mascot your kids will want to spend their summer nights visiting, a unique identity outsiders can associate with the area, positively, for decades.

Still don't like your choices? Well, you could have had Gobblers, Crushers or Keystones. Those were three of the eight finalists a certain team in the International League North Division included among its finalists for fans to vote on just a few years ago. And when the winner was announced, there were plenty of fans who scoffed, saying that the Gobblers, Crushers or Keystones - generic names, to say the least - would have been much more acceptable than the team name that got voted in.

That team: Lehigh Valley. The name that won: IronPigs.

At the time, many in Allentown wondered how that was possibly going to work. Turns out, it was pure genius. Want proof? You can buy the hats with the IronPigs logo in any mall in the Scranton area.

Yankees president and general manager Rob Crain comes from a place that knows all about name changes.

Crain was assistant general manager of the Omaha Storm Chasers, helping the franchise rebrand itself after a four-decade existence mainly as the Omaha Royals. From 1999 through 2001, Omaha went from the Royals to the Golden Spikes. It was so unpopular, it changed back to the Royals before the 2002 season.

But the Royals faced some of the same challenges the Yankees have these past few years. Not enough merchandise sold. Not enough of a separation between the big league team it was affiliated with and the sole entity it wanted to be.

So after some debate, and a series of suggestions, Omaha settled on Storm Chasers. A name that didn't roll off the tongue. A name that melded well with the culture of the area, though.

Last season, the Storm Chasers were a top 25 team in minor league baseball when it came to merchandise sales.

"Did everybody like all of (the names)? No," Crain said. "Did they all pass as the best team name ever when they were released? No. But we did what we said we were going to do. We wanted a team name with a connection to the community. We want it to be the community's team name."

Time will tell if whatever the fans decide is best among the six finalists will be the name that represents the area best. Will it be the next IronPigs? Or will it be the next Golden Spikes? The funny thing about team names is that, most often, you don't know what you get until you let it settle in for a while.

It will take a few weeks to get a name to replace the Yankees.

It will take a few years to really come to a decision on whether that name was the right one.

Donnie Collins covers the Scranton/Wilkes (insert team name here) for The Sunday Times. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com, read his blog at http://blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/yankees, or follow him on Twitter @swbyankeesTT

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